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Step by Step/Issue 33
This is Issue #33 of ''Step by Step''. This is the third issue of Volume Six. Sleeper Two crazies. Three. Another, then more. It was a deserved while later. Along a row of running stagnant water, a brain-numbing stench loomed. A tire floated in the river of oil, a parade of used bottles following it with sluggish need. There, beyond the few uglies that lurked about the sewer walkway, stood a person with no eyes. Two, could be three, flies buzzed around his ears. One landed on the snot which ran out his nose. His tongue, swollen and contorting, slithered out and took it. He ate the fly; cracking it apart with green teeth and all. He looked ordinary until he smiled–that courier's grin. His jaw went slack, gums loose with gaping holes. The courier gulped down the fly, waited for the chance of another meal, then resumed stalking. He went on, walking through the rows of darkness. The one who walks behind the rows. The man considered this, but then another fly landed. He ate that one as well. Ribbit, goes the frog. A thunder bolt cracked up above. It was a foggy one, good, but came off like a dud. Lyle Jackson watched the courier limp around from a partition wall, shivers running down his back, his gaze frozen. There's three more men, tallest at the end. That was Derek. Closer stands Nolan, who has his bleeding ass in a clutch, and then Dennis. Fright on the man's face. It slid down him like sweat, but here there was no such thing. Under Indianapolis, the unknown dwells. "We're being followed," Dennis babbled, snot running down his nose. "They're coming for us. That's right, stop for a second, and you'd hear the footsteps." "Don't scare me like that," Nolan goes. "Don't look back either." It was true; for every lap they ran, the person chasing after ran two. Lyle, humming, blew wind at the lighter he held. The flame yelped, settled, and readied. "Take me," he said to Him. He rose from his bend, fingers fixed around the Zippo. He had wanted a Marlboro, one for the road surely, but had decided against it. He was going for a sleeper hit this time around. The craving, the urge filling his lungs with greed, couldn't be quelled. "Take me," he added again, paws holding the wall for support. A ghostly feeling echoed through him. He looked around a while longer–the sewer partition wall cuts off a couple feet in front of the posse, where it splits off like a thumb and a forefinger. That is where the undead stand, beckoning in the cylinder tunnel of waste. The courier stands closest, the rest rubbing elbows behind him. They are his flock, and he wants them fed. Fed well, the courier tells them with a snarl. "What?" Derek clasped Lyle by the shoulder, making the fellow startle in his new shoes. "I ain't bothering you," Lyle said. The courier ripped to the side. The lighter sparked more fire. Drool frothed out his mouth; down a neck of blisters. He had heard with one of his ears, the other'd fallen off to the side and dangled. The courier isn't the least bit happy. His lips parted away and the upper one rose in a coil like a snake's rattle. His left shoulder shrugged down, the other up like a rooster at the crack of daylight. The courier snapped his chompers at Lyle. To his surprise, the courier doesn't make the first move. Two foes break from the pack behind him. They're coming, and they're hungry, too. The war isn't that fair; Derek has a gun, of course, but sadly doesn't have the brass nuts for it. The flame flickered for a moment, Lyle lost his thoughts, and he lost sight of the dead. Pools of water had collected in various pockets about the tunnel. He heard the stomping, the splashing. "Oh God–we shouldn't run–oh God." This was unsurprisingly Dennis. "You followed my ass," Derek pointed out. "And he got shot in the ass." "Shut up–" One of the dead folk grabbed Lyle. He wriggled, as most prey do when struck. In the dark, there was no chancing stuff. You either did or you did not, and Lyle chose to wriggle. He fell on the floor, beshitted his shirt, and wriggled some more. The two dead folk were on him. Gripping the lighter, he pounded the masses of black with fists. He was going to keep it going, but then he heard a gun go off. Ass-funk had shot. The lighter zapped on and the flame lingered a while longer. A dead body rolled off him. Lyle whammed the other like Old Hickory, and it fell off. He crawled away, holding the lighter up, and was tackled down. He wriggled more–to Hell's avail– and after some time he escaped. He went back up, waving the lighter. "Go," Lyle told the other. "Run ass-funks." The three break into a run past him. He followed. The courier and his pack, too. Down the tunnel was a stretch of a hundred feet. It diverged numerous times, stranding off into more passageways. The four raced down the tunnel, caring not for the other ways. What they didn't get to see, nor realize until the last second, was that the dead were walking out of the side tunnels. Lest he die here, Lyle prayed and ran. "This can't happen again," Nolan was weeping. He straggled along, had removed his hand from the bullet wound, and was running full-force. After a while they made it out through a side tunnel, clear of moaning. The ground here was squishy, a cemetery of trash and sludge. Nolan was near to hurling when a man in worse shape than he pushed him along–Dennis. "Where do we go?" "I don't know. I don't know where!" The undead lurked closer. Heels clicked, fingers cackled. Some hunched over and slow, others faster and more alive. This was a nightmare. Lyle Jackson looked around. Another set of lights hung in the distance, an aura of the light at the end of the tunnel. It took him a moment to realize, but it was the underneath of a storm drain. As they neared it, he saw snow clumped together. He was glad; there was a saying–when it rains, don't go in the drains. He waved the lighter around. Lyle expected to find a dead body. Faces, pale faces at the entrance to the tunnel. Lyle saw Derek making a split run up the storm drain, he would fit through it. Lyle grabbed him by the back and strung him back down. "You don't getta leave." "Let me go," he begged. "I want out of here!" More of the creatures flooded into the tunnel–little demons coming. For snacks, the courier told them. Save some for later, too. The courier led them now, advancing with the fastest of slow speeds. A long line where five people shamble closer to the top. The bellies of the beasts hungered, drumming like African drums. A fat one slugged over to them, side to the courier. He was rolling over his feet to get to them. The man growled once more before hitting the side of the tunnel, sloppily getting back up and making a dash at them. He toppled over–taking Derek down with him. The two made a ludicrous mess. The fat man moose-antlered on the young gumchewing sonofabitch. Derek had enough of it, was about to throw him to the side, when Lyle Jackson dusted off a piece of drifting wood. Put it to good use, you'd say. "Get up," Lyle told him. He closed the lighter's flame around the wood plank. It sparkled and ash flew. Immediately the wood grew into an orange ball of flame. A great flame. "Take this, and walk." The man–with a face of tiring fuel that casted a few years left to run off–pointed to a new direction. Where they stood, below the cavity in the earth, another tunnel cut through. It went west, up a flight of stone stairs. They ran out that way, free babies of the cool moon. Up there, no undead's tongue slobbered. "What now?" Dennis said. Through his sweaty gibberish: "Wha 'ow?" "Gotta secure this door," Lyle said. There was in fact, a door at the top of the staircase. They went through it, Dennis went to slam it shut good, and the door spun off its hinges. A black figure, hidden from the thrill of light, came out the other end. The courier, teeth doing their clacking, had an advantage. It wasn't the size of the battlefield–the room was a precise 5x5 footer. It couldn't've have been that he was outnumbered, four to one. This sort of leverage, think like the teeter-totter of a hand-cranked car, was something else. The courier wasn't to be messed with, but had to be messed with. Messed up good, stirred up like gumbo on the bayou. Dying on the bayou was one thing, beneath the city was another. It was hell-sent, and the courier promised no mercy. The fire rose in Derek's hold. The courier's mouth widened into a sinner's smirk, an unpleasant smile that would startle coyotes at night. He was in a dangerous mood, Lyle could see that. Dennis was beyond scared, too. Lyle snatched the torch up. "Burn," he roared and swatted the courier's back. "Burn up!" The courier's back ripened with popping yellow. A scorching hot inferno, like a blazing barrel half-filled with gasoline. Lyle noticed Derek'd chained the door, then swung again. It nailed the courier in the chest. A spout of smoke sizzled in the air. The courier wasn't smirking no more, he was giggling. Must be the fire, Lyle thought, swinging again. The plank struck him in the gut, and stuck there. It was all caught up in his''' 'open belly, barbecuing the guts he had left. Derek did open the door then, only for a moment. The courier rolled out in flames, crumbling down the stairs like the leaf of a willow tree. That was the last of him any of them ever saw. Lyle was glad; he needed more oil. He barely registered where there were, what this room even was. Nolan had gone looking. "What's it connected to?" "Dunno," Derek said. A maze of the unknown. A thriving jungle of rot and decay. A stacked shelf hangs to the left. A broom, something that catches the eye of Lyle, leans across it with empty canisters at its base. There's no place to leave from, expect from the way in which they came from. Lyle goes for the broom, reconsiders, then backtracks to the corner. This is when Nolan grabbed his arm. It might have been the last time he'd see Nolan's bravery outside of a nap in the graveyard. "You didn't see it." Nolan's lips creased together. "We can't go back. That bunch is crazy. Classic whackos. Four, five of them counting Gordon. Hell, even the Eugene kid. That makes six. Six bloodhounds looking for us." "I understand." "Thank you for confirming my worries." "Would they do it?" Lyle asks, then considers: "Do you think?" "I'm betting," Nolan said, and the look of a brave eagle immersed fully. "I killed the officer. You killed the soldier." "He's not dead." Nolan clucked his tongue. He didn't need to counter that, Brock was a dead man either way. "Plus," he continued, "they got Alex killed. Lilian, too. Malcolm did it. It's their goddam fault his blood got on me." He gestured at a massive stretch of red along his shirt. "You never told me how it happened." He meant well when he asks about Alexander. "You don't wanna know." With all the honesty he could muster, Lyle sighed in agreement. He'd seen childhood friends gunned down crossing between smaller to bigger ghettos. Walking home from the Sunday's church one time, he had talked to a nice young man when a gang of nice young men pulled up alongside them and fired. It was probably the only crime that nice young man had ever gotten away with. Lyle remembered that day in both realities; one bullet had left a ginormous indent on his chest, and the force from the barrage of rounds had knocked him into both sidewalk and a coma. He had also seen a boy turned into puzzle pieces with a machete. Hell, nothing could have topped that sleeper-hit. The good man he is, Lyle looked to Dennis and said, "What do you think's good for us? "A way outta here," Dennis said with growing hope. Lyle noticed ''that on him, could sniff it as well. The growing hope reached a peak; realization. "Should stay in here, though. Might as well, or get 'erested." "You said you wanted out." "That was Scar." "Shut your trap," Derek spoke, settling his hands on the door before walking them down it. The place was dark, save for a lightbulb burning above them. A heath of troubling things. Derek spotted Lyle checking him out, and let the ringer blare. "I'm no troubled man. A troubled man does foolish things." The Wacko's mouth curved into a grin. A moniker like Scarface, that's all it was. Unknowingly, it'd come back to haunt him, but matters like that were besides the outstanding point. Lyle fumbled through his pants. "Did I speak?" "–like working alongside you. And if you was smart, you'd end me on the spot." Derek closed in on Lyle, jabbing a bony finger at him. "I'm not scared of dying, Jacky. Wanna get why? Because I'll be fuckin gone. That'll be when you sprout the balls needed to make me drop dead." "Drop dead, yeah?" "You heard the words." Lyle reeled out a Marlboro. His lungs stiffened, relaxed, then he breathed. He coughed once, burned a cigarette, and kept grinning. "That's right. Now come closer." The Woods man did that. He stuck the finger in Lyle's chest, using height to his benefit. Dribbling sweat came down the barren mountaintop on Derek's head. He wiped the front of his neck. "What?"–he asked, forgetting his lyrics–"Yea, drop dead on the spot." That was as far as he got. Lyle, the durn Wacko, lowballed him a blow to the gut. It was a fitting hit, a sleeper hit. The boy never saw it coming, crashed like a tumbleweed it into the door, and collapsed like a flag at half-mast. "Sorta hard to talk to you myself," Lyle said, "so I let five fingers talk it out." Derek cursed at him. Swore him another, and got up. That's when there was a knock on the door behind him. 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